![]() ![]() Of the 14 Red Sox who played in Williams’ last game, only Gile and center fielder Willie Tasby are still living. It’s a nice way to exchange pleasantries with people.” It’s always fun to talk about and revisit a little bit. “I certainly enjoyed playing in that game, as anybody would have, of course. “That home run has been touched on over the years by more guys than me,” Gile said. He is, and always has been, honored to have shared a piece of box score from Ted Williams’ memorable last game, even if Gile’s line reveals an 0-for-4 afternoon. That doesn’t mean either Runnels or Gile will be back next year.”Īnd Gile, now 85 and living in retirement in Stillwater, Okla., is fine with all that. Gile’s home run two years later was boiled down to standard, end-of-season, dot-dot-dot stuff from the local scribes, such as this wave of the hand from the Boston Globe’s Arthur Siegel: “The Red Sox closed out with Pete Runnels as the American League batting champion and Don Gile, of all people, winning the final game with a homer in the ninth. It was in the books while it was still in the sky.” From my angle, behind third base, the ball seemed less an object in flight than the tip of a towering, motionless construct, like the Eiffel Tower or the Tappan Zee Bridge. The ball climbed on a diagonal line into the vast volume of air over center field. Fisher threw the third time, Williams swung again, and there it was. The crowd grunted, seeing that classic swing, so long and smooth and quick, exposed, naked in its failure. “He put the second one over, and Williams swung mightily and missed. “Fisher, after his unsettling wait, was wide with the first pitch,” Updike wrote. Titled “Hub Fans Bid Kid Adieu,” the piece has enjoyed its own lasting fame as a masterpiece of sportswriting. Or perhaps you can meander to the essay penned for “The New Yorker” by the late John Updike, who was in attendance on that cold, gray Wednesday afternoon. 28, 1960, off Baltimore Orioles pitcher Jack Fisher was prominently displayed in every newspaper in the country and continues to be explored in books, magazine articles and documentaries.Ĭome Monday, you might want to pause for a moment to commemorate the 60th anniversary of Ted’s mighty last swing of the bat. Whereas Gile’s home run two years later would not ripen into a lasting sports memory, Ted’s home run on Sept. Because why talk about Don Gile when you can talk about The Greatest Hitter Who Ever Lived? For Gile is very proud to tell you he played in Ted Williams’ last game - in which the Splendid Splinter hit a home run in his final visit to the dish and then circled the bases, head bowed, and disappeared into the first-base dugout. Yet while Gile often talks about a ballplayer hitting a home run in his last big-league at-bat, only rarely is he referring to himself. And he did well, forging a long career in pharmaceutical sales. But the Bear was back in the bushes in 1963, called it quits and returned home to California to find a job. It was the final day of the 1962 season, second game of a twin bill, and Gile, nicknamed the Bear, jumped on a pitch thrown by 19-year-old rookie right-hander Jack Jenkins and socked it high and deep to left field for a two-run walk-off in the Red Sox’ 3-1 victory over the Washington Senators.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |